Uyghur boy pose for a portrait at the Opel´s Bazaar, 100 kilometers from Kashgar, In Xinjiang Autonomus region in China, March, 2009. Photographer: Bernardo De Niz..The Uighurs are an ethnically Turkic Muslim people who have lived in what is now known as the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) for over 4,000 years. Known as Eastern Turkestan for hundreds of years,.Xinjiang is located along the famous "Silk Road", beyond the Great Wall, the natural boundary of China. Islam.entered the region in the middle of the tenth century and has flourished among the Uighurs ever since.